Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant (27 April 1822-23 July 1885) was President of the United States from 4 March 1869 to 4 March 1877, succeeding Andrew Johnson and preceding Rutherford B. Hayes. Grant, a Republican, had previously distinguished himself as a hard-drinking, "unconditional surrender"-driven Union general during the American Civil War, and he served as Commanding General of the US Army from 9 March 1864 to 4 March 1869 (succeeding Henry Halleck and preceding William T. Sherman). His presidency was marked by Reconstruction, a failed attempt to annex the Dominican Republic in 1870, and the Panic of 1873. While Grant supported Reconstruction and civil rights initiatives, he was affiliated with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, supporting the full return of the gold standard and the strengthening of the gold-backed dollar (as opposed to the liberals' support for inflated greenback notes). He was also President of the National Rifle Association from 1883 to 1884.

Early career
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1822. The son of a tanner and small-town mayor, Grant eentered West Point hoping to be "saf efor life", ensured a career and an income. By mistake, he was registered with the middle initial S, which he kept for life. He distinguished himself only in horsemanship, but on graduating he was sent to the infantry. Serving in the Mexican-American War as a regimental quartermaster, he saw a good deal of action, proving he had the gift of physical courage - a Union soldier would later say of him, "Ulysses don't scare worth a damn." His military talent was noticed, but this did him no good n the subsequent peace. In 1854, posted to California far from his family, he suddenly resigned from the army. Rumor said that he had been forced to quit or be dismissed for heavy drinking.

American Civil War
In civilian life he failed to prosper, but the American Civil War rescued him from obscurity. Throwing himself with immense energy into the raising and training of volunteers, by August 1861 he was a Brigadier-General assigned to the western theater. Grant first attracted the attention of President Abraham Lincoln and the press with the capture of Fort Donelson in Tennessee in February 1862. At a time of low morale in the Unino camp, Grant's widely reported insistence on the unconditional surrender of the fort's defenders was lauded. Two months later, fighting his first full-scale battle at Shiloh, he got a different kind of press. His camp was surprised by Confeerate forces in his absence and his army nearly routed. Grant returned to take control and managed to achieve an unlikely victory on the second day's fighting, but heavy Union losses shocked the Northern public. Tales of Grant's heavy drinking circulated, but Linkon kept faith him him, saying, "I can't sppare this man: he fights."

Sidelined after Shiloh by his theater commander, Henry Halleck, Grant contemplated quitting the army but held on with moral support from William T. Sherman. By fall 1862, he was back in command and seeking a means to take the fortress of Vicksburg, the key to the Mississippi. Grant was a master of logistics, using river steamers and railroads to move troops and supplies. But in swampy terrain crawling with Confederate raiders, conventional maneuvers broke down. Following months of frustration, in April 1863, Grant abandoned links with a supply base and marched across the country. Seizing Jackson, Mississippi, he cut the communications of the Confederate forces who had been driven back into Vicksburg. After a six-week siege, Vicksburg surrendered and the Union had control of the Mississippi.

Grant's successes continued when he was transferred to Chattanooga in October, where a Union army was under virtual siege after defeat at Chickamauga. Grant moved in reinforcements, and then took the offensive, opening the way for an advance into Georgia. In March 1864, Grant had the satisfaction of replacing Halleck as Union general-in-chief. Lincoln had recognized in him the man who would apply the Union's superior force unflinchingly to grind down rebel resistance. Grant moved to the eastern theater, leaving the trusted Sherman to run the campaign in Georgia and Tennessee. Grant was in many ways a surprising person to mastermind the Union victory. He had surrounded himself with a personal staff of acquaintances from Illinois, men of no military training or distinction in civilian life, but whom he trusted and with whom he felt at ease. He hardly ever consulted his subordinate commanders, running operations through a stream of clear, succinct orders written in his own hand. There was, in the words of one observer, "no glitter or parade about him." He made no flowery speeches - indeed, he never addressed his troops at all - and usually wore a private's coat, going around with a cigar clenched between his teeth.

Winning the war
Grant's way of fighting was equally sober and gritty. Convinced of the need for the "complete subjugation of the South" through the destruction of its economic life, he fully backed Sherman's scorched-earth campaign for devastating the land in Georgia. He later ordered General Philip Sheridan to pursue the same policy in the Shenandoah Valley. His own Overland Campaign in Virginia in May and June 1864 was a relentless series of attacks on Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, kept up regardless of cost and giving Lee no time to catch his breath.

The slaughter at the bludgeoning battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and especially Cold Harbor earned Grant a reputation as a "butcher", but in his view there was no easier way to win the war. The Overland Campaign cost 55,000 Union casualties and failed to annihilate the Confederate army, thanks to Lee's defensive skill. But it did impose losses on the Confederates that they could not afford and forced Lee to entrench around Petersburg. Grant played out the endgame implacably, yet showed generosity in the terms allowed to Lee on his surrender.

Presidency
In 1866, President Andrew Johnson promoted Grant to General of the Army, but Grant aligned himself with Johnson's rivals, the Radical Republicans, due to his opposition to Johnson's conservative approach to Reconstruction. In 1868, the 46-year-old Grant was elected the youngest US president of the 19th century, being elected as a Republican. He stabilized the postwar national economy, created the Department of Justice, suppressed the first Ku Klux Klan, appointed African-Americans and Jews to prominent federal offices, and created the first Civil Service Commission in 1871. In 1872, the Democrats and liberal Republicans united behind Grant's opponent Horace Greeley, but Grant's immense popularity and Greeley's death during the election led to Grant's re-election with 286/352 electoral votes. His second term saw mixed results from his peace policy with the Native Americans, his annexation plan for the Dominican Republic was rejected by the US Congress, numerous public scandals occurred, and the nation entered into a severe economic depression in 1873. He left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-and-a-half-year world tour that captured favorable attention for himself and the United States, but he failed in an 1880 presidential bid. While dying of throat cancer, he wrote his memoirs, which were a major critical and financial success. He died in Wilton, New York in 1885 at the age of 63.